Measure distance covered in the length of a song
Imagine geographic area given the musicians to roam
Number songs down before destination done
Hit corner by time clock hits the next minute
Shave time off ETA
Not late until start time elapses
Envision window into where you are
Just how close, closer,
every inch, every minute, every mile
Pray for a well-played EP
comes to mind
from the white light
spilling down
onto my bed.
A canonical,
conical
shaft from above.
From its singular point of origin,
w i d e n i n g
to envelope me in its illumination.
Just sit
and
Be still.
Breathe in the light.
With tough, leathery skin,
it’s a wonder she moves without notice.
Yet she skulks and slithers
throughout the mind,
the soul,
the psyche
leaving a trail of bad decisions in the name of self-preservation
Seeking only comfort and survival
not peace or progress
After years of hiding in the shadows,
she is an expert at skirting around the edges,
dropping pebbles here,
rolling beads of water down there,
until they gather in a puddle,
pushing behind the eyes
pulsating in the inner ear
an ache in the chest
an unease in the soul
Don’t trust this,
she says.
Run the other way,
she says.
And if you won’t listen,
she whispers ways to sabotage
All so softly that you don’t even question that her voice isn’t your own.
W.B. Yeats speaks to the greatest wish of all writers – and eloquently so.
All the words I gather,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm darkened or starry bright
W.B. Yeats
London, January 1892
It’s easy to ignore when it creeps up on you,
increasing slowly, by small degrees
Or not even ignore –
just not even notice
the paranoia that maybe you’re not cool enough to hang
the resentment for the life you do not have
the loneliness
the inability to relax
the overwhelm over everyday things:
shopping, showering, getting out the door
Just not feeling
talking, going, doing –
it
Until one day it’s suddenly all you can see,
all you can feel
And you have to deal with it all at once
Coming home to porch lights beaming like a beacon,
a sign that someone inside loves me,
anticipates my return.
Blossoming across the porch,
filling that space,
highlighting the grain of empty adirondack chairs,
the shadow in the space between the slats.
Spilling over and through the tic tac toes of the windows,
imbuing the living room with a soft warm glow akin to Christmas candles.
The lines of the room the only thing standing out:
straight across the back of the sofa,
the vertical rungs of the rocking chair,
the vaulted grid over the glass of the wood stove
In this dim light,
this stark relief,
is the bones,
the foundation of what matters.
The lines of life in this place,
this home I fell in love with.
In the light of day, distraction drowns them out
But here, in the quiet of night, profound simplicity reigns.
Treading water only lasts so long
At some point,
the pull of the boat or dock or shore
becomes too much
The edge of exhaustion creeps up
The doubt of how much longer the legs and arms can cycle,
When will the muscles or lungs give out?
The hand must be able to reach out –
To grasp the solid surface
To heave the dead weight up and out of the abyss.
Unless you decide to float
To rest your head in line with the water,
Arch your back toward the sky
Let your hands and feet sway like seaweed
Rest and freedom come with this release
But also require relinquish of control:
The moment your ears slip below the surface,
Deadening the sound of the world above,
Open only to the gentle sloshing below
The origin of your breath so close to submersion
Your lungs expanding above and below the water
Your bottom threatening to pull it all under.
Possible panic in action and inaction
All at the thin line where the water meets the air
iStock
I cannot see a lilac without catching out of the corner of my eye
the diaphanous flow of sheer sheeting of the same color.
The folds and waterfall of fabric enveloping my body like the ring of a bell,
smooth against the pop of buds bursting
into three-dimensional triads and quartets of color.
Green hearts gilded with the white patina of many moistured mornings,
a specimen grown gangly and sparse,
cut to the quick before flourishing in fullness once again.
Overtaking its age,
shooting up sprouts all around it,
expanding its perimeter.
It is the harbinger of spring,
of warmer days promised in the perfumed chill.
It is the talisman of youth,
of adventures in grandmother’s garden,
the boundary of Mr. Thompson’s yard,
the backdrop of moments frozen in time.
I cannot smell a lilac without being at once wistful and hopeful.
image from Getty
Stand at the foot of the hill.
Gaze at the crest as it looms above,
Silhouetted against the night sky,
Suddenly light in comparison.
A streak of cloud, the rounded edges of treetops.
To feel small in the furrows between the tall corn stalks
To feel broad and expansive in the dampened dark of night
Crisp air punctuated by the smell of pine
Crickets in the thickets of roadside grass
Their calls cycling faster and faster as I pass, like a card in bicycle spokes
Highbeams illuminate the trunks of trees lined up like the walls of tunnels
Unclear whether the fog films the windshield inside or out
In the cool of night, summer falls away
Chopping Potatoes 